Challenge #01738-D277: Relative Sanity

07 October 2017

(someone who is damn-near invulnerable and also has naturally-occurring venom that, in practice, works on almost all potential venomees pretty much like they had gotten mildly intoxicated, to someone who only seems to see them as a weapon and expects them to act accordingly): "Yes, I could drug people who aren't a threat to me, but I could also talk to them. Like a sane person." -- RecklessPrudence

People got entirely the wrong impression about V'lex. It was the whole alien invader thing. Even though she wasn't, strictly speaking, invading anything. If anything, she was technically marooned. Her people had fled from their scientific investigation of the planet when they found out that it was inhabited. They had left a lot of their technology, and V'lex, behind.

And now she was trapped in a scientific facility with all the leftover gear and nobody to talk to but a digital voice with all the emotive capacity of a brick.

She had to be fair, it was a nice space. With a garden area she could tend herself and nice views. She knew the views were digital simulations, because when the power went out, her view was of a blank, white wall. But they were very nice simulations and helped her feel less shut in. She spent a lot of time in that garden. Tending things she grew from seeds the crew had brought with them and then forgot. Just like they forgot her. It was something to do when they weren't busy taking samples out of her. Blood. Urine. Excrement. Skin, when she shed her skin. Nails, when she trimmed her nails. They even took her preened-out feathers. And, of course, the venom.